Do you believe in the power of cheese? I do, and yet The Hundred Loves of Juliet doesn’t do too bad a job of making its storytelling interesting. Unfortunately it crashes into stale predictability and empty angst. I know author Evelyn Skye was inspired by her own husband’s illness and their beautiful, intense romance. I…
West Side Love Story transplants that old Capulet/Montague tale to Texas and gives us a fun, spirited and fresh take on that tale of forbidden love. In the hands of Priscilla Oliveras, the old becomes new, and fun and sexual combustibility prevail. San Antonio native and E.R. nurse Mariana Capuleta is, for once, out and…
There is a single off plot point in Ramón and Julieta, but you’ll be darned to notice it while you’re nose-deep in the thick of reading it. It’s fun, light-hearted, and without the heavy sturm und drang of your usual Romeo and Juliet retelling; it’s got a lot of spirit and enough spice to make…
I have been blown away. Chloe Gong set a high bar with These Violent Delights, a 1920s fantasy version of Romeo and Juliet which transports the story’s action to Shanghai. Our Violent Ends is the first book’s equal. Gong’s talent remains unstinting. You need to read this book. It’s now 1927, and Juliette Cai is…
Stunning prose, a pulse-pounding romance, and unexpected twists upon Shakespeare’s familiar tale of youthful but doomed love make These Violent Delights a high-quality read for anyone who likes a good gangster tale with a heavy skosh of romance thrown in. It’s Shanghai in 1926, and a war between two families – alike in dignity, but…
One of the hardest things about reviewing is grading a book with strong writing that for some reason leaves you cold. Bright Smoke, Cold Fire is such a book. Normally, I love books that put a different spin on classical literature, and stories featuring lovers from rival clans is one of my favorite tropes. But…
The Romeo and Juliet story has been done to death. So it was quite refreshing to pick up Magnolia by Kristi Cook, a story that promised Romeo and Juliet in reverse. And despite a heroine and hero who are a little too close to perfect, this book delivered on that promise. In the town of…
Julie and Romeo is simply a heart-warmer of a tale. Loosely based on the classic Romeo and Juliet, it has a happy ending and enough interesting twists for those who like something different in a romance. Julie Roseman is a sixty-year-old divorcee who owns a failing family flower business. Her parents started Roseman’s flower shop…
I have been glomming Ruth Wind/Barbara Samuel for a while. The results have been quite successful, but locating her full-length historicals as written under her real name has been difficult. I searched longest for A Bed of Spices, the book I had been most eager to lay my hands on, since it is one of…
Romeo & Julia is the antithesis of the “sweet savage romance,” which is why I enjoyed it as much as I did. There’s not a lot of ugly, melodramatic conflict. There’s no overwhelming “I hate you, but I lust after you anyway” passion. Instead, there’s a hero who’s quite a bit younger than the heroine,…
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